Tolerance cannot be measured in terms of degrees of intolerance. I am essentially opposed to burning books even when they incite others to violence. But freedom is either an absolute or it is conditioned on not inciting others to violence. Anything else is rationalized bigotry.

Search This Blog

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Demonisation and Delegitimisation

A few years a go a friend of
mine, a Labour counsellor for Harrow, was discussing with me my forthcoming
trip to Israel.
He made an anti-Israel statement and by responding I fell into his trap. That
was my error. I call it an error because unfortunately those that deny Israel the
rights they give to everyone else are incapable of seeing the racism inherent
within their own arguments. Therefore, any reasonable response by me was not
only an act of futility; it was an act of incitement by me. I should have just walked away.

I think we all of us believes in
democracy but not every-one of us believes in free speech. When a discussion is
labelled an act of incitement simply because any response agitates the listener
it is time to fear. Fear and the absence
of equal access to free speech is the
start of fascism.

Intolerance is a staple of the
political bigot’s diet – indifference to the facts is the meat and two vegetables
of Israel’s
enemies.

My friend furiously spat out the statement
that one mans’ history is another mans’ mythology. The way he violently spewed out his response startled
me but it was also intended as an act of intimidation whose intent it was to
foreclose any further debate.

Edward Said was a Lebanese/US - Palestine born philosopher at Columbia University. He worshipped at the alter of pan-Arab
imperialism – he had no qualms resoundingly condemning Western Colonialism while
celebrating Arab Colonialism and he had no issue with the Arab aggression which
continues to this day at the expense of its indigenous non-Arab and original inhabitants. Edward Said was the founding father of Orientalism
– it has been fashionable since the 1970’s and while it rejects Western
imperialism it is reliant on the Identity Politics of non-Western players to
demonise the influence of Western thought or action outside of the West. And it refuses to judge them. He mainstreamed the idea that history is the
servant to the cause which till he argued for it, was a propaganda device
favoured by the Far Left. Put another
way, history is no more than a storyline and truth an inconvenient impediment
which may be discarded at will. If all history
is bunk (as Henry Ford said) then the truth is truly hostage to the terrorist.

So how do we combat delegitimisation
and demonization? I want to make it clear that we are currently playing by our enemy’s
rules and any narrative response must therefore lead to our defeat. If we are to answer the question effectively it
must be appreciated that there will be no benefit to trying to convert the agenda
driven bigot. They aren’t listening and they don’t want to hear. Of greater
importance is to gain the publics attention. As important, we want to deny them
access to the bigots’ pre-conceived prejudices.

If we accept the basic premise
then it becomes a lot easier to answer the question. You do not address your
attention to the denier. We will not convert the intelligent idiot. A
propaganda war is a war by any other means – it is disinformation, it is intimidation;
it utilises physical violence such as when the East London Muslim university
lecturer attacked the photographer; and it is vandalism, threats of
violence and the creation of a climate of fear.

I am not advocating the same tactics, but if we honestly believe
that our rights are being violated at every opportunity then it is time we took
the fight to our enemies. They are not adversaries or protagonists, or any
other woolly euphemism we may prefer. They are our enemy and if we become
casualties of their war – they will blame us, their victims, for it.

So again, how do we fight
demonization and delegitimization? That depends on the identity of our
interlocutor.

If it is the Muslim block or their
Left wing activist acolytes, we need to use the same placards they use to incite
others against us, against them. Islamism is a racist ideology, it is
colonialist and genocidal. There is no
love or peace in their theology and the Left has embraced this hatred because
it has always been comfortable with a story that is not complicated by
complexity or nuance. The appropriate
Koranic texts should be displayed in response to every act from the other
side. Our slogans must be as familiar to
the general public as theirs are to us.

This is essentially an agitprop
exercise. We must have an explicit message.
Repetition is a staple of the propagandist’s arsenal. But as important is to stop addressing our
enemy’s claims – only then will they be forced to respond to our narrative
attack on them. We are not interested in
our enemy, only in the onlooker. Remember they hate us so why do we try to gain
their affection?

There are people who say that
suffering ennobles; that those who have suffered should be more honourable,
purer, better, kinder, more tolerant than those who have not. It is a fine idea but it is also nonsense.
Suffering does not ennoble us. It makes us bitter, twisted and it torments us.
I have never heard it said that the former Afro-American slaves must uniquely
turn the other cheek and to do so would rightly be condemned as racist. But Jews who suffered persecution and
genocide are told to have trust and be noble, to suffer in silence and to turn
the other cheek. And no one cries ‘outrageous,’
‘RACIST.’

Years ago in the flagship Saudi
Mosque in Regents
Park the mosques’ elders projected
an image onto the massive back-wall, of Ariel Sharon’s head as it slowly underwent
metamorphosis into a pigs' head. The animal
metaphor, of the monkey, the pig or the dog as an allegory for the despised and
worthless adversary is by intent, deeply offensive. It is central to the anti-Christian and
anti-Jewish imagery in Koranic literature.
Ridicule is an essential component of dehumanization that raises Islam and
Muslim civilisation above the dhimmi (the inferior infidel). There is not a
single reason to not turn it back on them. The demonic visage of Mahmud
Achmadinijad (add a couple of horns) should be everywhere displayed. Recent
Iranian history justifies the comparison to Hitler or perhaps Rasputin. A few placards showing people hanging from
cranes, won’t make for regime change but will be a reminder of the difference
between us and them. And when it is
distilled to its purest point the differences are what define us and what this
conflict is all about. It is a simple matter of choice, between those
that (we are frequently reminded) celebrate death, (because it brings them nearer
to their god and their prophet) and those of us taught to live life in this
world as if there was no next world.

The entire Arab world save
perhaps Egypt and Iran are the random
creation of Western Colonialism. I repeat: the Arab world is no more than the
artificial creation of western imperialism fostered by the greed of its Arab
leaders. Self-determination was perhaps, never intended to be unique to the
Arab nations and they can be deconstructed to rid us of the artificial racist
entities that they represent. The Arab nation is hegemonic, they believe in the
inherent superiority of the Arab over all other people, everywhere. Muhammad /
Allah chose for them to be his vehicle for the conquest of human history and
our physical subjugation. They have suppressed, discriminated
against and ethnically cleansed every non-Arab people that they have encountered.

People have selective memories.
They like to imagine that by sacrificing us they will be ignored or that at
least they will share in the spoils of victory, and for nations, guarantee an
uninterrupted oil supply. After the
Madrid bombing in 2004 when al-Qaeda murdered 200 people and injured 1,000
others Osama bin-Laden told us here, living in Europe that we could immunize
the continent against further terror if we returned the Iberian Peninsula to
Islamic control. All we needed do was to
deliver Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar
into Muslim hands, a mere 60 million souls sacrificed to an Islamic
dream. At the heart of this acquisitive Islamic
fundamentalism is the concept of colonization and cultural transfer. Today we would
summarise it as “What is mine is mine and what is yours is also mine” but Islam
adds the following: “Once we seize it, it remains our patrimony for ever.”

I do not think I am better than
anyone else, my religion does not impose on me a duty of taking my cause unto
others; my choseness imposes demands on me but does not make me nor imply
superiority over any one else. I resent
the bigots’ accusations that render me guilty of every act they themselves have
committed against me.

Our narrative and the vanished narrative
of the other persecuted non-Arab players, bruised and battered by conflict with imperialist Turkey,
racist Iraq, theocratic Iran, Ba’athist Syria, fundamentalist Egypt (and to
every Arab nation we could add a description that would be no less aspirational
in their desire to dominate and destroy) can only be heard if we express our
outrage publicly at every opportunity. There is much to demonise in the aims
and ideology of our enemies.

The Kurds and the Armenians are
the perfect Delegitimization weapon -
Christians, Jews and Muslims in the Arab world: Chaldeans (Assyrians), Copts, Greeks,
Berbers and Baha’i – the too long list of the murdered and the butchered, the humiliated
and the expelled, the discarded people of history – it is propaganda that
the Muslim world denies with not a
moment of shame. We must rewrite the
rules of engagement.

Only then will the people want to
listen, only then will they hear us.

1 comment:

sir, i enjoyed reading this post as i like the idea of doing something proactive but i don't believe your tactic would work. it really just brings the tone of the debate down to the level of our opposition. i think the best thing to do is actually start taking legal action.imagine - a small group of very good international lawyers, who are media savy and look good on tv, they speak excellent english and are young and vibrant. the team work with honest reporting and pursue every transgression that passes as journalism and factual reportage that is basically propaganda against israel. the instigators are pursued through the legal system that they use to protect them and the complex web of EU UN legislation that our enemy use to protect themselves. start with the bbc, then the guardian and watch how people begin to alter the information they publish for fear of being sued.the battle field is the mind, we have to use the mind, be creative, different, think outside the box. you are correct about the zombie hordes, they won't change their mind, they practise pathological hatred that they don't even understand.great blog, keep up the good work